ripples from the rain
by indelibility
Summary: Rin has always been worth chasing after.


_{This…this is the last._

_The only secret I have never told you._

_This secret, I have kept for two years, until the world became too heavy to carry on my shoulders and I could not stand it anymore so I had to sit._

_But still I sat there, and waited._

_And when you did not come, I went looking for you.}_

_._

_._

_._

So this is how it all comes to an end.

Rin's eyebrows furrow into broken understanding, and he buries his face in Sousuke's jacket, tears slipping down his face. Sousuke feels like the world is spinning very, very slowly.

_Rin_, he thinks. In front of him, his best friend is cracking like ice over a wintry pond. Sousuke looks down to the verdant grass crumpled carelessly under his feet. It would be far more ironic if they were under the cherry trees.

_Don't waste your tears, Rin._

Rin sobs quietly, but each heaving breath has such weight behind it. _Don't cry_, Sousuke wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat.

_I am not worth crying over._

But Sousuke remembers—

(or more accurately, he has never forgotten)

Rin is the boy who always cries first. Everything else comes after.

[o-

For so long, he'd held the thought of Rin in his head like a safe place to return to when things went bad. His best friend Rin. Proud, vulnerable, cheerful Rin with his fragility like glass, it made Sousuke nervous at first, as though Rin might shatter in his hands if he pushed too hard.

And Rin cried so often:

Tears like pearls cascading down his cheeks to gather on his chin. A hurried wipe of his eyes on his shirt sleeves, leaving them red and swollen. A speck of dust in his eyes, Rin always claimed, never ashamed of his blatant lies, always so ashamed of his errant emotions. He could never hold them in, either, and Sousuke learned to watch for the telltale glassy sheen in Rin's eyes, that particular wince Rin always made when he was trying to blink back his tears, eyebrows lowering and mouth curled into a stubborn frown.

But despite his sensitive nature, Rin was resilient. Rin could bend. Rin always bounced back with his knife-edged smile, would always return to Sousuke with a friendly kick to the shin, a knee to the thigh, an elbow to his side.

So in the end, it's not surprising that it isn't Rin who breaks.

It's Sousuke.

-o](

Sousuke was a child who had needed an anchor, who had felt so empty sometimes in his pride and solitude that when Rin came striding into his life with a cocky grin on his face, he'd eagerly welcomed the light.

After that was when he'd learned how it felt to have someone's arms slung casually around your shoulders, as though they belonged there with you and you belonged there with them. After that were the days filled with sunlight and laughter that Sousuke had hoped would never end, so he would never have to face a life where Rin wouldn't be waiting to race him down the hallways at the end of class, where Rin wouldn't be there to flash his bright, sneaky grin at Sousuke when the teacher did something stupid or funny.

There were sleepovers and snowball fights and video game tournaments and movie marathons. For the first time in his life, Sousuke swam not to the quiet observation of his parents on the bleachers but rather to Rin's raucous shouting as he rounds up the other members of the swim team to cheer for Sousuke.

And then Sousuke remembers waking up one morning after a sleepover to observe Rin's peaceful face merely a few inches from his, Rin's mouth slightly open, his breathing soft and content and Sousuke remembers thinking,

_I couldn't live in a world where Rin doesn't exist._

)[[[

Of course then Rin has to tell him,_ I've found some people that I want to swim with_, and of course Sousuke has to let him go because he doesn't know how to chase after people, because it's always been Rin who had chased after Sousuke and now Sousuke regrets it so much because he hadn't realized then, but now he knows—

Rin has always been worth chasing after.

_Of course_, Sousuke thinks not even a full year later, when Rin shows up at his house with sheepish pride written cleanly all over his face and the words "I'm going to Australia" dropping like heavy stones from his mouth.

]]]-o

Sousuke feels like his head has been buried underwater for the longest of times. He has been drowning in Rin, if it is possible to drown in thoughts of a person.

It is what sustains him:

Years spent chasing after a ghost, a vision, a phantom in the water next to him, stretching his fingers out as Sousuke reaches for the wall, grinning at him as Sousuke climbs each successive podium to be handed the first place trophies, the ribbons, the gold medals that don't really mean anything until Rin can join him by his side.

So Sousuke trains harder, day by day, because he can't be left behind. Because the thick layer of dust that is gathering on the floor of his mailbox can only mean one thing: that Rin is busy training, too busy to write letters (it couldn't possibly mean anything else, because above all Rin is strong-willed and determined and someday he will return to swim by Sousuke's side, and that is the one constant that remains in Sousuke's life).

Sousuke has a dream, but he isn't driven by thoughts of a lost father. He swims because he can, because he is good at it, because if he weren't doing it he'd be playing soccer instead. He wants glory, sure. Fame, sure. But when he closes his eyes, he doesn't see bright lights and cheering fans. He sees Rin stepping up next to him, a friendly arm thrown around his shoulder, Rin's scarlet gaze sparking with challenge and approval—

His true rival. His best friend.

A witty rosy-cheeked cheerful boy who is now probably a sharp-toothed muscled teenager.

Sousuke wonders if Rin's gaze is still unerringly clear. He wonders if Rin's smile is the same, if he still marvels over the cherry blossoms in spring, if he still watches the sky for rainbows after a storm.

He wonders, but he can't even begin to guess, and why imagine when the real Rin is larger than life a thousand kilometers away in Australia?

o-((

His shoulder is probably torn inside. He can feel it burning slowly, like an unrelenting itch, an unwelcome twinge of lightning quick pain when he moves his arms just so, when he raises his hands above his head, when he tries to lift a box of books for his teacher.

It's a ticking time bomb, but Sousuke tries to ignore it, tries to pretend that it will go away if he does not think about it, because the thought of Rin and the Olympics is too seductive to give up and it is too early to think about slowing down or physical therapy or falling behind.

_Rin is waiting for me. Rin is training hard. Rin will be disappointed if I stop before we achieve our dreams together._

Then it happens: like arriving at a destination that he had always known he would someday reach. A rippling stinging searing pain is arcing up his shoulder into his arm and he knows before he's out of the water that something's wrong, something's seriously wrong and he can't deny it any longer, and it hurts. It hurts so much, and all he can think is—

_I'm glad that Rin isn't here to see this._

—because this of all things might actually break Rin, or maybe not, because he swims in memories of Rin but Rin has a different life in Australia now, and before that he had had a different team in Iwatobi (and Sousuke remembers Nanase Haruka's graceful stroke and Rin's sparkling eyes and thinks with a little bitterness that maybe he doesn't matter all that much to Rin anymore).

But that's ok, if Rin is still swimming, because at least one of them can still reach their dreams.

))[[

But Rin isn't swimming.

And Sousuke watches helpless as his world falls around him and thoughts spin through his head:

_What is he doing? How could this happen to Rin? I should talk to him. What do I say? How can I reach him?_

_I can't move._

_I—_

]]((-

The world settles around him. Leaves whirl into the sky. The wind whispers through the trees above him. Sousuke smiles gently at Rin. Rin, whose fingers clutch desperately into Sousuke's jacket. Rin, whose lowered head hides the tears that slide down his pale cheeks to drip into the hollow of Sousuke's collarbones. Rin, who is sobbing brokenly and asking Sousuke, "Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

Sousuke pauses. He feels like a weary traveler after a long journey. He is empty of hope, of dreams, of anger or sorrow. He simply feels resigned.

He recalls suddenly what he'd felt as his shoulder had suffered that final, devastating injury.

Freedom. And loss.

So purposeless, like a balloon, cut from its string to float aimlessly in the sky. Sousuke can't drown in Rin if he can't swim anymore, and even Rin's tears are not enough to fill an entire river for Sousuke to float in.

_I'm so tired._

"Why did you hide it?!"

But Rin is here now, solid and steady and strong against him. If he can swim with Rin one last time, it will all be worth it. All the pain, and all the unshed tears, and all of the years spent dreaming and wondering what that beautiful smile might look like, when Rin finally smiles at him.

_I wanted to be your true friend._

_And this…this is my last chance._

So Sousuke smiles, and he bites back his own tears, because Rin always cries enough for more than one person.

-))[

"Because, I knew you would cry."

]

He swims and it hurts and oh, it hurts so fucking much but he hears Rin's voice, and finally, finally, he sees the _light_ and he reaches for it—

.

.

.

_{I have been waiting so long._

_But finally, I have found you._

_I would have crossed a thousand oceans,_

_braved a hundred storms,_

_for you._

_Like rain, I have fallen for you,_

_and then I have stood back up,_

_for you._

_And now that I am here,_

_now that I am here—_

_._

_._

_If someone were to ask me,_

_"Was it worth it?"_

_I'd smile and say,_

_"Always."}_


End file.
